


After the War

by FreshBrains



Category: The Last House on the Left (2009)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They lived in the humid cave of their secret, of what happened at the summer home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the War

**Author's Note:**

> A small writing exercise for one of my favorite horror films- a glimpse into their life After.

When they get back to the house- their real house, the one they inhabit all seasons- it feels like jumping out of the cauldron and landing in a bed of coals. Nowhere is safe, and nowhere feels like home.

John works. He runs late hours but calls no less than eight times a day, calls Emma then calls Mari then calls the home telephone to make sure it is still connected. He has become obsessed with the sound of the first ring of the phone on the other line- even if they are not home, or using the bathroom, or sleeping, at least he knows a connection can still be made.

He and Emma sleep in their big king-sized bed with the white eyelet comforter every night but they do not really sleep. They exist somewhere between storming nightmare and quiet reality, awakening every ten minutes in a gasping cold sweat, the sound of labored, wet breathing in their ears and the feel of dirty skin on their fingertips. Emma has always been one to suffer in silence- she can roll away and bite her fist, hiding her dreams from John, but John cannot stifle his sobs quick enough, and soon he ends up wrapped in her thin arms like a child.

During the day, Mari crawls into the bed and sleeps for hours with Emma next to her. They spend most of the day asleep in the blinding sunlight- every shade is open but every window is shut tight, every door is locked with three deadbolts. The house is sweltering in the early fall heat. Mari is supposed to be back in school, but Emma did not protest when she asked to start a semester late. The thought of sending Mari to school makes her want to scream- sending her baby, her only baby, out into a world with that many people. She cannot stand having Mari even inches away from her. Until they both can breathe again, she constantly needs to have the tickle of Mari’s long blonde hair within an arm’s reach.

Mari wavers between thinking too much and abandoning thought altogether. She wishes she could get high, make everything blurry and foreign and semi-fictional, but pot makes her think of Paige. She only saw her during the summer, they were never best friends or even close confidants, but so many things reminded her of that girl, especially the smell of pot. Just the thought brought Mari back to those woods, buried her in the pine needles and blinded her with a flash of light glinting off fresh blood and silver belly-button piercings.

It brought her back to the feeling of tiny rocks digging into the flesh of her stomach, of screaming with no sound. That was when Mari’s mind shut down like an unplugged machine and she closed her eyes, falling into a dreamless, black, restless sleep.

Sometimes she thought about Justin. She wondered where he was. The last time she saw him was on that boat before she breathed the morning air and passed out into a painful sleep, and when she asked about him weeks later, John told her that he was safe. He told her what she needed to know but his eyes also told her not to ask again.

Nobody knew. Nobody knew what happened at that house but them, their small family- John, Emma, Mari. What happened at that house festered in the walls of their family home and ate away at everything that ever provided comfort and love and safety. There was no room for their secret to breathe, it just bounced back and forth, up and down their walls, suffocating its keepers and pressing their faces to the flames. They lived in the humid cave of their secret, of what happened at the summer home.

Without the air of the outside, they could only wither away.


End file.
